In Russia, the discussion is not of how Russia could up and “invade” Ukraine, but increasingly of the danger that staged provocations, such as an attempt by Kiev to militarily retake the Donbas or even Crimea, may force war upon the country. This was the premise of a question raised to President Vladimir Putin in his year-end press conference by Irada Zeynalova, a well-known senior journalist who is the Sunday news review anchorwoman at Russia’s largest non-government channel, NTV. She asked: “Mr. President, what should we prepare for? … Have we estimated the probability of war even as the result of a provocation?”
Putin answered hers and a later question on war over Ukraine from a journalist with Ekho Moskvy radio at length, by reviewing, step-by-step, how the current crisis flowed out of the 2014 “bloody coup” which brought to power “radical elements that are called `Nazi’ in Ukraine,” who “burned people alive” in Odessa, as he bluntly reminded listeners. Putin named no names (on this occasion) of the Western powers which ran the coup, but the direct U.K./U.S. hand is well-established, flaunted as it was as the events occurred. This, as he put it, “is the gist of the problem.”
Why was that coup needed? What for? he asked about the coup, carried out only one or two days after a peaceful process for change had been agreed on by European nations, by Russia at the personal request of then-U.S. President Barack Obama, and then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
After that Nazi coup, came Crimea. “How could we turn down the request of Sevastopol and Crimea, the people who lived there, to take them under our protection, under our wing? It was not possible. We were simply put in a situation where we could not have acted differently.” Repeated attempts by the Kiev government to resolve the Donbas problems by force followed. Russia argued “anything but military operations!” The Minsk agreements “are the only possible way out.” Instead, what has followed is encirclement, banning the use of the Russian language, and laws granting rights to Ukrainian “indigenous peoples"—against those of Polish, Hungarian and Romanian, as well as of Russian background. “So how are we supposed to react to all this?”
“Then we hear: war, war, war. You could get the impression that maybe a third military operation is in the making. Moreover, they are warning us in advance: `Do not interfere.… If you do interfere to protect these people, certain sanctions will follow.’ It may well be that they are preparing for this. This is the first option we need to respond to, and act, while keeping this in mind,” Putin continued.
He pointed to “a second option” being developed by the West: turning Ukraine into an anti-Russia base “by constantly stockpiling the latest weapons there and brainwashing the local population…. Under the cover of these new weapons systems, radicals may well decide to settle the Donbas issue, as well as the Crimean issue, by military means…. How is Russia to live with all this? Do we always have to stay on guard, watching what happens there and when a strike might come?
“We want to build friendly relations with Ukraine; moreover, we want to achieve this at any cost and will go to practically any lengths,” he told Echo Moskvy. “But how is it possible to develop relations with the current leaders, considering what they are doing? It is practically impossible.”
For those who understand the importance of the long waves of history, consider the implications of the fact that Putin himself framed this discussion by the famous policy principle of Alexander Gorchakov, the Foreign Minister of Russia for the 25 years after the Crimean War: “Russia is not angry, Russia is focusing.” [See Documentation for these exchanges from http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67438]
